MSN

President Donald Trump acknowledged that his decision to attack Iran was at least partially motivated by efforts to assassinate him.

The 79-year-old Trump ordered airstrikes against Iran over the weekend that killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the Washington Post reported that he gave an interview Sunday night suggesting that decision was connected with two two cases of alleged Iranian murder-for-hire attempts that were charged by U.S. federal prosecutors.

Protests erupted during a House Judiciary Committee hearing after Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem refused to retract claims that two protesters killed by her agents were domestic terrorists.

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) was the first Democrat to confront Noem about the killings at Tuesday's hearing.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) pushed back on conservative CNBC host Joe Kernen for calling the Constitution's war powers provisions a "moot point" because President Donald Trump had already ordered attacks on Iran without the permission of Congress.

"You must have seen that some of the things that are circulated, how many times President Obama took military action without a declaration," Kernen said in defense of Trump on Tuesday. "But it's almost a moot point. [Trump has] at least has probably 60 days under certain provisions to carry things out."

The top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee sounded the alarm that President Donald Trump launched a war without having enough weapons.

The 79-year-old president fired off a Truth Social post Monday night stating that the U.S. military had a "virtually unlimited supply" of munitions that would allow the war to continue "forever," but he also blamed former President Joe Biden for giving away too many weapons to Ukraine.

A convicted Jan. 6 rioter was arrested for assault after touching several women on public transit.

Bryan Betancur recorded videos of himself stroking the women's hair while riding Metro trains in suburban Washington, D.C., and police arrested him after the videos circulated on social media, reported WUSA-TV.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio infuriated MAGA's already angry "America First" wing – and especially antisemitic influencers on the right – by identifying Israel as the driving force behind the U.S. military action in Iran.

The secretary of state justified the airstrikes as necessary because Israel intended to launch its own attacks on Iran, which he said would have resulted in retaliatory airstrikes against American forces, and Axios reported that set off howls of rage among President Donald Trump's right-wing base.

A combat-unit commander told non-commissioned officers Monday that the Iran war was part of God's plan to usher in the End Times and bring about Jesus Christ's second coming, according to a complaint filed with a religious freedom watchdog.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) has fielded more than 110 similar complaints about commanders in every branch of the U.S. military between the war's start on Saturday morning and Monday night, reported journalist Jonathan Larson on his Substack page, and the group told him the complaints came from more than 40 different units stationed in at least 30 military installations.

Vice President JD Vance overcame his longstanding objections to U.S. military interventions in the Middle East and persuaded President Donald Trump to expand his offensive against Iran, according to news reports.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had been working for months to steer the 79-year-old president onto the path of war against what he argued was a weakened regime, and the foreign leader worked Feb. 11 during an Oval Office meeting to make sure diplomatic talks with Iran did not undermine the secret military plans the U.S. and Israel had been developing for weeks, reported the New York Times.